What's the difference between impersonator and impostor?

Impersonator


Definition:

  • (n.) One who impersonates; an actor; a mimic.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The PUP founder made the comments at a voters’ forum and press conference during an open day held at his Palmer Coolum Resort, where he invited the electorate to see his giant robotic dinosaur park, memorabilia including his car collection and a concert by Dean Vegas, an Elvis impersonator.
  • (2) Mimics are stars and the country’s finest impersonators have their own television shows.
  • (3) Written partnership agreements, employment contracts and related documents may seem to complicate what appears to be a straightforward arrangement, and can make a close relationship somewhat more impersonal.
  • (4) Prince himself is being royally impersonated by Fred Armisen, another regular on the late-night show.
  • (5) The Cowboys had one last chance to beat the Eagles but Kyle Orton, doing his best Tony Romo impersonation, threw an interception to end Dallas hopes.
  • (6) Post-concussion symptoms were more frequent in women, in those injured by falls, and in those who blamed their employers or large impersonal organisations for their accidents.
  • (7) As the health care system becomes more impersonal, competitive, and cost conscious, there is a potential for increased dissatisfaction with health care providers.
  • (8) Psychosomatic medicine began as a social movement within medicine, designed to counteract the mechanistic and impersonal features that had accompanied the introduction of science into medical education.
  • (9) "In my opinion, what Graber has done, to be a straight man calling himself a lesbian, is tantamount to impersonating an entire community."
  • (10) Wyndham Mead , an American who has lived in Berlin for the past three years, joined because he was looking for an alternative to "impersonal gay dating sites".
  • (11) Asked about the status of his own job, the press secretary joked “I’m right here”, telling reporters, in a belligerent line that could have been uttered by his impersonator Melissa McCarthy: “You can keep taking your selfies.” The president was busy sowing confusion by trying a new passive-aggressive tone on Twitter , musing: “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out.
  • (12) Bwanakaya says the success of her makeshift clinic is due to its proximity to poor villagers who often lack the means to travel and may be daunted by the thought of visiting an impersonal, mainstream institution.
  • (13) She was a fixture on the scene for decades and in 1969 often performed as a male impersonator or drag king – an illegal act at the time.
  • (14) Please, get rid of the gimmicks – the faux-concerned and impersonal feedback loop and the specious “choice” paradigm designed to soften us up for privatisation – and listen to your frontline staff.
  • (15) The anonymity resulting from increasing specialization, the tendency to think impersonally in terms of probabilities following the introduction of screening programmes with routine examinations and the connected legalization of medicine are addressed as particularly important problems in this respect; all these trends beset the personal doctor-patient relationship with difficulties and suggest the procedure with the greatest technological input as the safest and most convenient solution, thus making it difficult to find the correct degree of moderation.
  • (16) Mahaffey disagreed with the family, saying "the possibility of a police impersonator needed to be explored".
  • (17) The mass media, in contrast, supply an indirect, impersonal and machine based opinion to an overwhelmingly anonymous public.
  • (18) In college students personal body areas were used to touch those of different gender while impersonal body areas were used to touch those of the same gender; personal body areas were more likely to be touched by others of the other gender.
  • (19) Many of A Yi's novels are modelled on his experiences as a younger man, when he was a policeman, and share some of the concern with precision and impersonality of a judicious crime report.
  • (20) Tina Fey’s unflattering impersonations on Saturday Night Live were an instant hit.

Impostor


Definition:

  • (n.) One who imposes upon others; a person who assumes a character or title not his own, for the purpose of deception; a pretender.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If you buy your tarragon from a garden centre, beware of that rather bitter, dragonish impostor, A. dracunculoides, or Russian tarragon, which is a much less refined and tasty thing.
  • (2) But the damage was done, leading the GOP establishment to suggest that Trump had finally been unmasked as a conservative impostor.
  • (3) "He was not simply an impostor seeking to profit solely off the name and reputation of Rick Ross.
  • (4) Few in the Square Mile tire of hearing about pre-results gaffes that have included a guard routinely taking a break after parking his security van outside a customer’s store before venturing inside to collect the takings, a pattern that allowed an impostor to don a G4S uniform and make off with £14,000 from the store’s tills; and (best of all) a prisoner tricking his G4S guards into tagging his prosthetic leg, thereby allowing him to skip his curfew by detaching the limb.
  • (5) Without impostors, nationalists and bandits, without tanks and APCs, and without secret visits of the director of the CIA … UPDATE: Medvedev again warned of civil war in Ukraine after a meeting Tuesday with his counterparts from Belarus and Kazakhstan, Reuters reports: Medvedev said on Tuesday he hoped that the authorities in the Ukrainian capital have "enough brains" to prevent a further escalation of the conflict in the east of the country.
  • (6) Manchester United ended the transfer window in farce and disappointment with the deal to sign Ander Herrera having failed after the club refused to pay his €36m buyout clause, while claiming that impostors in Spain attempted to muscle in on the deal.
  • (7) Syphilis remains the great impostor and still must be considered in the differential diagnosis of unexplained liver enzyme abnormalities, even in a patient with no symptoms or signs of early syphilis.
  • (8) Another impostor fooled Afghan, British and US intelligence in 2010, pocketing thousands of dollars in cash incentives for coming to peace talks before he was revealed not to be the high-ranking Taliban official he claimed.
  • (9) Shaffer's play is discussed as an illustration of this distinction and its relation to pseudoemotionality, the impostor syndrome, and the "as if" personality.
  • (10) The previous government, under Goodluck Jonathan, conducted high-level negotiations before realising it was talking to impostors.
  • (11) Don't be duped by the ostensibly tragic finale: that dead old man was just an impostor.
  • (12) Ukip denies all knowledge, spluttering that the leafleters are fifth columnists and impostors.
  • (13) At the Paris farm show, two feminists seeking to award her a prize “for being an impostor for the so-called defence of women” were removed by Le Pen’s security team.
  • (14) Capgras syndrome is characterized by a delusion of impostors who are thought to be physically similar but psychologically distinct from the misidentified person.
  • (15) Earlier in the year there were rumours that Prince William had registered, but it was later revealed to be a mere impostor.
  • (16) However, Rosen discovered that the cigar-smoking, paint-daubing impostor was born in 1960 or 1961 and had never been in a Tarzan film.
  • (17) In Last Man Standing , he writes that he suffered from "impostor syndrome", expecting that everything he'd achieved would inevitably be taken away from him.
  • (18) Two days on, there is still confusion at Old Trafford about the involvement of the three lawyers described on deadline night as "impostors" and United feel so strongly about it they have been willing to put their position on the record.
  • (19) It was found that over an extensive range of values for the equilibrium constant of a non-ideal isodesmic generating model, only a non-ideal monomer-dimer-tetramer-octamer was a successful impostor model.
  • (20) The other advantage of having a Taliban office is that it should reduce the risk of impostors presenting themselves as Taliban negotiators.

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